


feels like we only go backwards

by sighduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Finn wakes up, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sighduck/pseuds/sighduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Hey,' said Poe. His voice sounded deeper, kinder in the dimness. '...You know me?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	feels like we only go backwards

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, well. This fic was honestly never getting finished, but now it's really never getting finished, because its precise premise has been written out to beautiful effect in [you'll be my resolution](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6283147) by the wonderful [zeppelin (transgenicveins)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/transgenicveins/pseuds/zeppelin).

 

_Hold on, Finn, ok? We still need you ... I still need you._

 

  
I.

 

Rey.

That was the first thought in his head. 'Rey,' he said - or tried to say. It hurt to speak. 'R--ey!'

'Hey, hey, hey,' said a voice in the darkness. There, on his left - a raspy little laugh. The smell of tarseed and puluk grease. Hands squeezing one of his. 'It's me, Finn. Everything's alright.'

Finn opened his eyes - and immediately knew something was terribly wrong. Even in the dim blue medbay lights, Poe looked like he'd aged five years overnight.

Rey was dead. That was the only explanation - while Finn was taking a stupid nap, Rey had gone up against Kylo Ren, _Darth Vader's grandson_ , the man who'd murdered Han Solo without so much as a flinch, the man who'd engineered the deaths of billions. And she'd lost! Of course, she'd lost. Lost because Finn had chosen to play the hero, instead of getting her to safety.

No more deaths, he'd told himself. And he'd failed.

'Rrr-ehh,' he said, trying to wipe his face. His hands didn't move. Nothing would move. ' _Rhh_.'

'Whoa, buddy, hey! You're gonna hurt yourself, Finn, you've gotta calm down! Hey! Can I get some help over here?'

Everything went slow and pulsed and hazy. Poe's voice left - and then the darkness came to him.

 

-

 

Rey visited his dreams that night. 'I hear you were looking for me,' she said, smiling. She looked taller and stronger and well-fed. Finn fairly throbbed with guilt.

'I'm sorry,' he said, and because it was a dream, his voice worked fine and his throat didn't hurt at all. 'I'm so, so, sorry, Rey. It should've been me.'

Rey said nothing. She was a ghost; a figment he'd dreamt up. An incubator vision.

'...Finn?' The light touch of fingers on his forehead. It wasn't real. Rey wasn't really sitting on the bed beside him; she wasn't really talking to him. His head was just telling him she was so he wouldn't feel like such a sithspawn.

Still - what were dreams but little shields? If he couldn't face her here, he wouldn't be able to face her anywhere. He opened his eyes, and made himself look at her.

Rey looked so sad, so hurt. So beautiful.

'Why are you sorry, Finn?' she said, reaching for his wrists. 'What should've been you?' Her voice was soft as hands, soft as he'd never heard it before.

'It should've been me that Kylo Ren killed,' he said, voice cracking to pieces, 'not you.'

Her fingers fell loose of his, the dream clearly breaking apart. Already he could feel a building pain in his throat. Soon he would wake up...soon he would have to face a world without Rey.

'What the kriffin' kriff are you talking about?' Rey snapped. Finn startled. Well. That was a...colourful detail. Had Rey always had such a toilet tongue? 'If this is your backwards way of apologising for going after Kylo, I don't think it's very funny.'

Finn couldn't speak for a moment - and then, since his throat hurt, because he was awake and not dreaming, and because Rey was alive and not dead, it took him a few moments more to get his words out: 'I did what now?' Going _after_  Kylo Ren?

Rey paused. Narrowed her eyes; scanned his face quickly. He stared back at her, a smile helplessly tugging at his lips. She'd won; she was _alive_.

Something warm pulsed over him - somehow it felt like Rey, touching his head on the inside, and she wasn't dead, she was ok!, so he didn't squirm away, no matter how much he wanted to.

Rey blanched. 'Finn...where do you think you are?'

 

  
II.

 

His throat hurt a little less after water - but it started hurting again after all the questions he was _strongly encouraged_  to answer. Maybe they thought he was a First Order spy or something, he didn't know, but the questions they asked made no sense. 

_Why did you let Kylo live? Where has the Palace been moved to? How did Snoke die? What year is it? How old are you? Are you awake? Finn?_

'Finn?'

Finn blinked the sleep away, rubbed at his eyes.

There was someone standing in his doorway.

'Who's there?' he croaked. 'I. I may not look it, but I'm actually at my best when I've just woken up. So just. Keep that in mind.'

A small laugh - and then the someone came through the door and became Poe. The lights of Finn's monitor changed from purple to green; the blinds above parted like water. Every shadow became softened by the red of the moon.

'Hey,' said Poe. His voice sounded deeper, kinder in the dimness. '...You know me?'

'You're Poe Dameron,' said Finn, dry-mouthed, 'best damn pilot in the Resistance.' Poe's lips twitched into a smile. Finn hadn't seen him, or Rey, or BB-8, or anyone he recognised, all day. It was...a relief, to see a familiar face again. 'And I'm Finn, and...I don't really remember anything else.'

'Well. that's alright,' said Poe, coming a little closer. 'It'll come to you, don't worry. It'll come to you.' Just then, looking at Poe, it really did feel like something was coming to him - a feeling, or words, or-or _something_. Poe was...Poe was different. His eyes were the same, though. His smile was the same. His face was--

tired. He looked tired; grey around the edges. At first Finn thought there was something casting a shadow across his face; finally he realised it was a scar starting on the right side of his forehead and ending on the left side of his lip. Laserburn, looked like.

Finn whistled before he could stop himself. 'Wow. Did it hurt?'

Poe laughed out loud. (Same laugh, too.) 'What, when I fell from Hev-Un?'

...Hev-Un was probably some kind of highly classified Jedi base that Finn was supposed to already know about. He didn't ask. 'No, your,' Finn forced himself up, batted Poe away when he rushed forward, 'I'm fine, I meant your--' he gestured vaguely, belatedly aware that he was being a little rude.

Poe's face, which had gone tight with anxiety, smoothed itself over so quickly it was a little hard to believe. 'Oh, what, this old thing?' he scoffed, pointing a finger at his face. 'I barely even notice it.' He had a really elaborate shrug, Finn thought.

'Well,' said Finn, trying out the shrug himself, 'I think it's _really cool_.' Poe blinked. 'I, I mean. Uh, the _ladies_ probably think it's cool.' Poe kept staring at him. Finn tried out the shrug again. It...didn't seem to be working.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Tame Impala song.


End file.
